🎙️ From Visual Search Founder to Visionary VC w/ Jewel Burks Solomon, Co-Founder of Partpic & Managing Partner, Collab Capital
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In this episode of Outsider Inc., host Ian Hathaway interviews Jewel Burke Solomon, a founder, investor, and community leader based in Atlanta. Jewel shares her experiences of co-founding PartPic, a startup designed to identify and replace industrial parts through visual search technology, which was later acquired by Amazon. She discusses her challenges in raising capital as a black female founder and how those experiences inspired her to become an investor. Jewel highlights her work at Google for Startups, where she helped launch the Black Founders Fund and Latino Founders Fund. She also talks about co-founding Collab Capital, a venture fund focused on building long-term wealth and trust in underserved communities. This is a story of turning hard-earned lessons into purposeful action and reimagining who gets backed in venture.
Show Notes:
(01:17) Jewel’s Journey with PartPic
(06:27) Navigating Identity and Overcoming Bias
(10:16) Early Influences and Entrepreneurial Roots
(15:00) From Google to McMaster Car
(20:25) The Birth of PartPic
(27:28) The Decision to Sell to Amazon
(30:26) Handling Post-Sale Depression
(36:55) Founding Collab Capital
(38:37) The Atlanta Startup Ecosystem
(40:23) Mental Health Initiatives at Collab
(42:10) Reflections on DEI and Future Goals
(48:15) Beyond the Bio with Jewel Burks Solomon
✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC
✅ Guest: Jewel Burks Solomon, Co-Founder of Partpic & Managing Partner, Collab Capital
Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2025, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.
Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.
AI-Generated Transcript
Jewel Burks Solomon: [00:00:00] What I'm really hoping is that the trust gap closes. People didn't believe me and that interfered with their ability to evaluate my business. I'm hopeful that through my work I will have been able to prove that you can trust people in business. And give people the benefit of the doubt. Um, of course, do your due diligence, but ultimately invest in people, not just because the pattern matches, but because when you hear them and listen to them and really see them, you.
Get excited about the vision that they want to pursue. So I'm hopeful that through my work, through the people that I invest in, through the great things that they do, we're able to [00:01:00] get to a point where the trust gap is closed.
Ian Hathaway: Welcome to another episode of Outsider Inc. I'm your host, Ian Hathaway. Today's guest is Jewel Burke Solomon, a visionary, founder, investor, and community leader based in Atlanta. Jewel co-founded Part Pick a startup that let users identify and replace industrial parts with just a photo. It was a deceptively simple idea, rooted in real frustration.
Jewel experienced firsthand. Against the odds, she raised $2 million in seed funding before selling the company to Amazon, and a deal that made her one of a small number of black women founders to lead a venture-backed startup to successful acquisition. Amazon went on to integrate the technology into its visual search and product identification tools, bringing her innovation to millions of customers worldwide.
After the sale, Jewel took a step back to reflect, and in that space found a new kind of purpose. She returned to Google where she had once [00:02:00] interned during college and spent several years in her early career to lead Google for startups in the United States. There she launched the Black Founders Fund and Latino Founders Fund, deploying over 45 million in non-dilutive capital to underrepresented founders.
At the same time, she was quietly laying the groundwork for something even bigger. Collab capital, a venture fund, rooted in Atlanta and built on a different model, one that centers trust. Ownership and long-term wealth creation in underserved communities. Jewel's story is one of vision, persistence, and deep intentionality.
She brings a rare mix of tactical clarity and personal openness, reflecting on everything from the roots that shaped her to the raw emotions at her hardest moments, to the values guiding her now. And on a personal note, Jewel is someone I admire deeply, not just for what she's built, but for how she's moved through the world while building it.
I'm excited to talk with Jewel about building investor trust from scratch, navigating identity after a major exit. [00:03:00] Rethinking how capital can work for those left out, and designing institutions that foster community wealth now and for generations to come. Jewel, thank you so much for stopping by.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you so much for having me, and that is the best introduction that anyone's ever done for me, so I'm like, I need you to sue me.
That, that's so good. Amazing.
Ian Hathaway: It's great to see you again. I'm happy to have you here today. I had a lot of fun digging through the details of your journey, and somehow I'm walking away more impressed by you now than I was before, which is saying something. I'd like to start with some big news that you have.
Collab Capital, the venture capital firm you co-founded in 2019. Just announced the closing of its second fund, a $75 million seed and early stage vehicle. Wow. Congratulations on that.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it was not easy, but [00:04:00] we're super excited to now have fresh capital to deploy and some really great companies.
More investing to go, more institution to build. It's a fun time.
Ian Hathaway: Well, it's really a testament to your ability to execute. This is. Not just a difficult time to raise in venture capital. It's a generationally terrible time, and yet you did it successfully. This follows your debut fund of 50 million, which launched in 2021, so you're now managing over a hundred million in assets.
I'd like to dive more deeply into the firm's thesis later on, but just at a high level, what is your mission at Collab Capital and maybe how are you different from other venture capital firms?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So my mission at COLLAB was really born out of my experience as a founder. So I had a really difficult time as a founder raising capital.
I had really challenging experiences with investors, [00:05:00] and I made a, a vow to myself while I was still building my company part. Pick that if I ever got on the other side of building that business, that I would become the investor that I wish I had. So I started Angel investing first, and then knew that I needed to be writing bigger checks to more people in order to make the impact that I really wanted to make.
Menzo founded collab with this idea that investors can be aligned with founders, and that takes communication, that takes transparency, that takes understanding, and so that's really kind of the core principles that we use to form collabs. We're now deep into fund two deployment. We've made seven investments so far out of fund two, adding on zip 38 investments that we made in fund one.
Um, but we really just thought about how could the experience have been different if we had better communication, better alignment with our investors as founders. And my partner and I, Barry, we both were founders, so kind of had [00:06:00] that shared experience. And now we're really fortunate to be able to use our experience, the, the good and the bad to kind of make an experience better for the founders that we support at collab.
Ian Hathaway: Wow. What a novel thought that founders and investors can actually be aligned. That seems obvious to me, maybe less so to others, but having empathy for the entrepreneur's journey, which is, as you mentioned, is based on your own journey. You made it a big part of your mission to support founders of color, especially women, and that's something that you've approached with both purpose and your personal experience.
We talk a lot on this platform about what it means to be an outsider in tech, and I think part of that is acknowledging that the playing field just isn't the same for everyone. For founders who don't fit that traditional mold. The hurdles can go beyond product and fundraising. They're personal. They're emotional, and they're systemic.
And [00:07:00] what you've spoken about is what it's meant to navigate this world as a young black woman building a tech company and raising venture capital to just kind of level set to ground us in reality. Before we dive into everything you've built and everything you've accomplished. What's something that you wish more people understood about what the experience of being an outsider is?
Actually like
Jewel Burks Solomon: when people talk about their experiences, majority of the time it's real. And I think a lot of times people listen with the desire to say, oh no, it's not that bad, or it couldn't be like that. I think something that's different about how I approach conversations or listening to people's experiences is I just assume that they are 100% telling the truth and what they are sharing is true to their experience.
When I reflect back on my journey and some of the things that I experienced, particularly as a young person [00:08:00] in Silicon Valley, so I moved out to Oakland, worked in Mountain View, straight outta college, and it was definitely a culture shock. Being one of very few black women on the teams that I was on initially in a new environment far away from home, that gave me a set of experiences that really would follow me for the better part of my career as a founder and my experiences with investors and how they saw me, and the types of ridiculous conversations I would have to have about the fact that my team was capable of building this kind of novel technology.
I, I so vividly remember investors simply not believing me. One of the stories I share is that I had an opportunity to read an investment memo that was written about part pick, and in the memo, the word alleged was used four different times to describe things that were very obviously true. The funniest one [00:09:00] was, this was a, an investor that we were talking to towards the end of our journey Amazon was, was circling around and.
The investor wrote as sort of the closing part of the memo that Partpic has allegedly received an offer to be acquired by Amazon. Just the facts of what was happening at the time they didn't believe, and that I think was really indicative of what my life and career looked like. Honestly, probably to this day in terms of always having to prove something, always being second guessed.
And I think that is not a unique experience for many people who are outsiders. And so just having people be more mindful of the fact that when you're hearing someone's story, just kind of take it for what it is, take it for face value, and not always being so skeptical of people who maybe look different from you or have a different set of experiences than you.
Ian Hathaway: Wow. That's foundational to everything we do [00:10:00] is to be believed, to be heard. Right. I was not expecting that answer, but I am gonna be pondering on that for some time to come. You hinted at some of the challenges you faced in building part pick, but let's rewind a little bit to your early years. You were born in Alabama.
You grew up between Nashville and Mobile. Mm-hmm. Your journey started not among a family of tech executives, but a family of successful local entrepreneurs. Your mom and insurance, your dad in real estate and retail, and your grandfather building numerous businesses in mobile. During the 1960s, you started working in those family businesses as young as five or six.
How did those early experiences shape your view of work responsibility and entrepreneurship at an early age?
Jewel Burks Solomon: I love talking about this and really using this as an anchor for everything else that's come after in my life, because those [00:11:00] experiences early with my parents and my grandparents were so formative for me, and I think they gave me a sense of I can do anything.
'cause I saw my parents working in varying degrees of success in terms of how the businesses turned out. But what I saw was their work ethic. I saw that they got up early, they worked all day into the nights, and they had me right by their side. And that for me as a young person, made me want to become an entrepreneur because I honestly, that was like the only thing I saw.
I always knew that I wanted to build something of my own. I didn't know what form that would take, but I did know that it was important to me to build a business and have that business be community driven. I remember going to the bank with my granddad and my dad when I was really young and everyone knew them, and [00:12:00] they were really central figures in the community, and that made an impression on me and made me.
Wanna have that same impact when I grew up.
Ian Hathaway: You've spoken before about that example, your grandfather, William Burkes, Jr. He seems like a particular model of influence for you. So what about him Do you most wanna try to compel unto others? What did you learn from him?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Man, don't make me cry on here. Um, so I, I have, it's okay.
Ian Hathaway: It's happened before.
Jewel Burks Solomon: I have to say, I, I have. Two grandfathers, both named William. One is still living. He is known as Papa Bill, and he is really central also to this, to my story. But the grandfather that you're referring to, William Burkes Junior, he passed away when, when I was senior in high school. But the impact that he made on my life and the fact that I, I'm still in conversation with him to [00:13:00] this day, I, I feel like.
He taught me so much about business, about life, about how to conduct yourself, about how to be a person of integrity and how to be focused on family as a core. So my grandfather, he was a civic leader. He was a jack of all trades. He was amazing, and I think just about. Those formative experiences, and what he taught me was just not to put any limits on myself, and I have so many vivid memories of the way that he treated people and how he was so grounded and so confident.
If you think about this context of a black man in Mobile, Alabama, who is a business owner and has started from. A life in very rural Alabama. [00:14:00] Very, very humble beginnings. I mean as ascended to being a business owner, being a person whose four kids all went to college and really making a, a beautiful life with my grandmother married over 60 years before he passed.
Like all of that I think were the critical foundational ideas in terms of what does a good life look like and what should you. Focus on in order to get there.
Ian Hathaway: Wow. He sounds like an incredible man. I hope you see that you're a living example of him. I know he'd be proud of you today. The year he passed, you went on to college, you excelled in school, went to Howard University to major in business.
Once you got there, you landed a summer internship on Wall Street. The next summer you had an internship. On the other coast at Google in Silicon Valley, which sparked your interest in [00:15:00] technology. What were your early impressions of Google and maybe how did that contrast with Goldman Sachs?
Jewel Burks Solomon: My first impressions were, wow, this is so different from anything I've ever experienced before.
It was fast paced. I was challenged. I had an amazing manager, Marcella Butler, who I'm still in touch with today. And she saw something in me that, you know, I didn't at the time see in myself as far as my potential and what I could do. And she really encouraged me a lot because I was definitely experiencing the shock of being in California for the first time and, and being really far away from home.
And she definitely. Gave me confidence to really perform and and shine there, and I also just fell in love with how wealth everything worked. That seems weird, but I was just like, wow, the systems work. I [00:16:00] can reliably do all the things that I need to do, which was a contrast unfortunately, from my experience in college where at that time there was a lot of friction in terms of the systems.
My PE curiosity was sparked because I was a business major and I got in conversation with some of the engineering interns, and I found out that they were making twice what I was making as a business intern, and I was like, wait a minute. So that made me more curious about building technology and what that could look like, and contrasting that with Goldman Sachs, which honestly was also a really amazing internship experience for me.
The learning from that Goldman Sachs internship was. Also about pace. I remember going to New York and everything was just much faster pace than I was used to. Coming from Nashville, Tennessee. It was about pace and it was about excellence that was demanded from the folks who are managing me, and it just [00:17:00] brought everything up a level for me and I.
Quickly understood what was gonna be required. So I feel like those were so formative experiences for me and it really was just a matter of the timing. I interned on Wall Street in 2008, that internship was gonna look quite different.
(both): Yeah.
Jewel Burks Solomon: And so I remember Stacy Brown Philpot, who is still a, a friend and mentor to me today.
She actually called me when I was contemplating if I was gonna go back to Goldman for a second summer or go to Google, and she was like, you need to come to Google. This is the place to be. She was, by that time, an executive at Google. She had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and now she's an investor.
So we were looking at deals together, so it's so funny how they come full circle, but I appreciate that so much because it, it gave me exposure to technology and obviously I fell in love. Never look back.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah. The rest is history. Yeah. Sounds like continued theme in your life. Mentors [00:18:00] guiding you at critical junctures, something obviously you are to other people now.
So after graduating from Howard, you did in fact follow that advice. You went to Google in California, you worked in enterprise sales. After a couple years, your grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Your younger brother got sick. You decided that you were too far away from home. Yep. Google denied you a transfer to the Southeast, so you took a job at a company called McMaster Car, an industrial supply company of all things, and you moved to Atlanta.
That decision eventually became consequential and shaping your entrepreneurial journey, but at the time, I'm sure many people around you and possibly even yourself may have perceived that. Move as a step backward. So just tell us a little bit about your decision to leave the tech world in Silicon Valley working at this company that many people deemed to be the greatest company to work for, to leave that world and to move closer to [00:19:00] home and working in industrial supplies.
Jewel Burks Solomon: It was a crazy decision at the time, but it, it was a decision about. Being close to family. As you mentioned, my grandmother was going through a difficult time. I have four younger brothers. One of them was sick at the time and I was just stressed about being so far away, and so I really wanted to get back closer to home.
And also at the time I was 23, so I was young enough where even if it was a bad career decision, the impact was gonna be minimal. I could just, you know, find a different job or. Start over. In my eyes, the risk was pretty low. When I got to McMaster car, I was like, oh no. What have I done? This is awful. At the time, it felt like a, a potentially big misstep in terms of the trajectory and how I saw my life, but obviously it, it all worked out.
It was the right at the time. I was able to be [00:20:00] close to family when they needed me. I was able to kind of reset. I was able to experience what would become the foundation for partpic. So it, it
Ian Hathaway: all
Jewel Burks Solomon: worked out.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah. Well you were putting family first and what didn't make sense, maybe immediately actually made much more sense later on.
So there's a valuable lesson in that for everyone. At McMaster Car you were managing customer escalations and constantly dealing with people who couldn't describe. The part they needed. Around the same time your other grandfather Bill had his tractor break down mid harvest, and you struggled to help him find this replacement part.
Was that the aha moment? You had these two experiences that clicked together in your head where maybe you thought there has got to be a better way to search for parts and I'm going to be the person to go and build that.
Jewel Burks Solomon: [00:21:00] Yes. That is what happened. I would say I am probably the only person in the history of the world who would leave Google to go to McMaster car.
So that unique juxtaposition of careers where I was for a few years, seeing technology being built in a really efficient and fast way. And then I go into this totally different environment. Still serving a huge market industrial part. It's a massive market. But what I saw there was that they were not using technology in the same way my brain put these things together.
What if this industry that is printing money, making billions of dollars, but wasting a lot of money because they're not necessarily leveraging technology in the ways that they can to serve the customer. What if you could bring technology into this space? And then I was kind of already [00:22:00] ruminating on ideas when Papa Bill called me and was like, I need your help.
And I was able to put it all together and, and that experience with him is what put my heart in it when he needed this part. That is what made me say, oh, okay, if he needs it. I'm sure there are many others like him who need an easier way to find parts, and that is what I'm motivated to solve. I would like to get up every day to figure this out for him.
And so that's really what made me go from this could be interesting to, no, I have to do this. Um, that, that was the catalyst for sure.
Ian Hathaway: I wanna call out the way you frame that. I think it's really important. Some of the most successful founders I've talked to, including on the show, have talked about literally naming that ideal customer persona, making it as narrow as possible in the beginning as a key to success.[00:23:00]
So you did that, you had the Papa Bill problem you were solving. Yeah. So just tell us a little bit about what Park Pick was. You've launched it in 2013, you left McMaster Car to build this company. Who else was involved? What was the founding like that early vision in In early operations?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. It's, it's funny 'cause now we're over a decade removed and reflecting on those early days.
It was rocky. It's really rocky. But I did have a clear vision pretty much from the start that I wanted to solve this problem of part search. Use image recognition technology to do so. I knew the words, but I didn't know how to build it. But those early days, I would take extra, will call shifts at McMaster car to talk to customers and ask them questions about, you know, if you could find products with an image, would you search that way?
And of course they would say yes. And so I was able to validate my [00:24:00] idea. We went from. Just the idea in my head, in late 2012 to a accelerator in New York in 2013 to pitching at TechCrunch, which is kind of like the official launch in 2014 to raising a seed round in 2015 to selling the business in 2016.
So that was the timeline of everything. In the mix of that, lots of ups and downs. Got really great customers. Had built a database of over a million parts by the time we sold to Amazon, and obviously had a, a hard time with investors, but learned so much in that experience. I mean, even further, you know, spent three years at Amazon integrating the technology into the Amazon mobile app, so a total of seven years working on Partpic.
And got a lot of great information, hard [00:25:00] knocks, lessons, learnings that I now get to share with entrepreneurs.
Ian Hathaway: And now you're the industrial parts nerd of the Southeast. So
Jewel Burks Solomon: also that I know way too much about nails, screws, bolts, washers, pipe fitting.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah. Wow. Okay. I think I just fell asleep listening to this.
No, it is an amazing story. You did talk about the seed round that you raised. You were told no by almost everybody. That's not uncommon really, and for early stage founders. But what feels different for you is the reasons that you were told. You hinted at a few of them already. You weren't believed. I can imagine you were some claims too young.
What were some of the additional reasons that you were
Jewel Burks Solomon: given? Big reason, which I think people sentiment about has, has changed to a certain extent now, but a big reason was I, I was based in Atlanta. Many of the investors I was speaking to were in [00:26:00] Silicon Valley, in New York, in Boston, and the philosophy at that time was, as a seed sage company, I should be close to my investors.
And so, you know, a lot of people would say, well, if you move to Silicon Valley and moved to San Francisco. We'll look at investing and I felt it was important for me to be close to customers and most of the industrial companies are in the south and the Midwest, so I didn't understand why I would move to San Francisco.
So that was one piece of feedback I got a lot. The others were just, we don't know a lot about this space. Is it really big enough? But like I said, industrial parts is a trillion dollar industry. It's huge. And technology for that space was not a big category, but obviously growing. So yeah, I don't think that the reasons were very good, but people certainly gave me reasons why they couldn't or wouldn't invest.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah, sounds like [00:27:00] Atlanta was definitely fertile ground for you and finding a co-founder, finding talent, and I think it's insane that investors would say, we want you to be close to us, not close to the customers. You eventually sold the company to Amazon in 2016. You built this amazing breakthrough product push through all kinds of naysayers and bias, and ended up getting acquired by one of the most powerful companies in the world.
Huge accomplishment. Tell us about your decision to go through with the sale to Amazon, and what was kind of the driving force behind making that sale?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, I mean, the headline is great. The reality didn't feel as good when it was happening. I definitely felt that my back was up against the wall because the offers that I was receiving for our Series A were not good.
And then the offer from Amazon was better, still not my [00:28:00] dream of billion dollar exit. That was my dream, but didn't get there. However, it did allow me to accomplish goals that were. Core for me. So when I looked at the offer and was able to say, okay, we're gonna give our investors a return and do it, you know, in really a year's time from when we raise the seed round.
So they should all be happy. We're gonna be able to take care of the team, make sure everyone gets great high paying jobs and gets some money because everyone had equity in the business, and then have a, a life changing event. As the executives as well, and really just have a platform to be able to build from here.
I think those were all the things that I was optimizing for at that time. What I believed was that the road wasn't gonna get any easier for me from a fundraising perspective. It was clear to me that there were some obstacles that I probably could press on around, but you know, it was just gonna be really, really challenging in terms of finding investors [00:29:00] who believed in me and believed in the team.
And so I made a decision at that time that the best option would be to sell to Amazon. That was a decision. It was hard as well, the negotiation process, the integration, the feeling that I had to fight for everything that that carried on through my time at Amazon. But again, I think now that I've had many years to heal, heal and lick my wounds, I feel like.
It was all building toward, you know, what I'm doing now and, and my ability to know what happens at each and every stage so that I can help coach founders as they
Ian Hathaway: go. I know that outcome did not meet your billion dollar aspirations, but. It was definitely a success. You handled it in the right way. You negotiated that deal yourself.
Yep. Not easy. And you took care of the people that meant the most to [00:30:00] you. I know your CTO is still at Amazon, so you know the product is reaching millions of people and so I just want to call that out. I know that's something that founders have to grapple with more often than not. Yeah. Is not meeting that expectation.
But it was definitely a success. I know it was hard at the time. I'm glad you went through that because it has made you the person you are. The headlines were great. People were celebrating, but inside you were hurting. You kind of had a little bit of an identity crisis. You actually experienced clinical depression, which you've been open about, and which I'm grateful for you being open about that.
How did that feel going through those ups and downs? And what would you say to founders who might be experiencing that right now?
Jewel Burks Solomon: It felt so strange to experience. It was a, a big deposit into my account and literally not be able to get out of the bed [00:31:00] because I was so sad. It just, it didn't matter. It's like you're supposed to be happy.
This thing that you have been working really hard for, you have sacrificed a lot. You have postponed a lot in your life. For this moment and you are devastated. What is that about? And it really took me going to therapy and also thinking about what would make me feel like that experience and all the things that I went through was worth it.
And what I landed on was I need to share with people what I learned. And so I kind of put out a post. If there are any founders who wanna talk about what they're working on, I'm available. So I started to turn outward to heal. At the time, that was the best thing I could think to do and, and mostly to make sure that other people didn't repeat some of the mistakes that I made.
And [00:32:00] that's really what started me on the journey to become an investor, because once I started having those coffee meetings, I began to get really excited about the companies and the founders that I was meeting with. And I was like, oh, you know, I have a little extra change right now. I can, I can write some checks.
Um, so that's really how I got into investing initially. Yeah. But it, it, it did take time also, it, it just so happened that I went on a blind date with my now husband, a weekend after I sold my company. So that also was a pick me up. Oh, wow. I'm
Ian Hathaway: sure, I'm sure he heard it all. Okay.
Jewel Burks Solomon: He heard it all that first day.
The fact that he did not run is. It is why he's my husband now because I had so much to say. I, I just unloaded everything on him.
Ian Hathaway: Did did he get to talk at all during that first
Jewel Burks Solomon: day? Probably not, no. He's the type of person that ask lots of questions and he just asked all the right questions and I had, I had a lot to say so.
Ian Hathaway: Well, so ga with founders is what you thought to do and it's what kind of [00:33:00] brought you back to life? Interesting. Sean O. Sullivan, he's was just on the show and he went through a similar depressive episode after what was an objective failure of a company. And I kind of asked him, you know, what? What's the best way for founders to pull themselves out, you know, if you're feeling depressed or burned out?
And he said, engaging through the mentorship model is really the best way to enliven that spirit again. And that's what you did. So now you're back in action. You're writing angel checks. I know that eventually leads you to collab Capital. But before we get there, I wanna talk about your return to Google.
(both): Yeah.
Ian Hathaway: So not long after the sale, you came back to Google, not as a junior hire or an intern, but to lead Google for startups in the us. For listeners that don't know what is Google for Startups?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Google for Startups is now, I think it's been around for maybe close to 15 years, but historically it [00:34:00] was looking at how can Google show up in emerging startup ecosystems and really provide the best of Google, whether that's the platform, the people, the products, to startup communities.
Historically, there were campus locations and places like London and Tel Aviv and Japan. And at the time when I was recruited back to join, there had not been a concerted effort around emerging startup ecosystems in the US or you know, a team focus on that. So I was really brought in to look at how can we show up in the US for emerging startup ecosystems and emerging founders, um, and really bring the best of Google to those folks.
Ian Hathaway: One of the big things you helped create at Google was the Black Founders Fund. The Latino Founders Fund. Since 2020, those initiatives have deployed over 45 million
Jewel Burks Solomon: now 50,
Ian Hathaway: 50 million. Yep. In non-dilutive capital to underrepresented businesses. [00:35:00] What was the focus of those funds? What are they doing now?
How can founders benefit from that?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. I'm so proud of that work. I saw an opportunity. In the age of COVID and everything that was going on in 2020, I saw an opening to help Google better leverage some balance sheet capital and use it in service of startups and founders. I saw that PPP loans were not being equally distributed, and I thought that many of the founders and companies that we had built programs around were not going to exist if we didn't do something.
So I made this proposal around we need to put together a essentially emergency fund to help these companies that are struggling. And that kind of morphed into what became the Black Founders Fund. What became Latino Founders Fund, and what now I would say [00:36:00] is known as a Founders Fund model, which has been used across the globe.
It's been used for founders in Ukraine. It's been used for female founders in Japan. It's been leveraged now as a template to be supportive of founders in various communities. It expanded, it grew. Now over 500 founders have been recipients of that funding and that funding was catalytic. So that $50 million has gone on to, I think we're close to a billion dollars in terms of what those companies have gone on to raise post the funding.
So Google being their first check and then them leveraging that stamp if, if you will, to go on and raise substantial follow on rounds.
Ian Hathaway: That sounds incredible. The impact is enormous. You mentioned the word catalytic also feels like that applies here to you, catalyzing what would come next. Collab capital.
What are you most excited about now? [00:37:00] What are you looking for in founders and how can folks get in touch?
Jewel Burks Solomon: We're preparing for our fourth annual founders retreat and. For me, it's so enriching to be able to be with the founders in person and have them be together. This is like the thing that I look forward to planning every year, and I also am excited about the fact that we have companies that despite all of the challenges in the market and, you know, tariffs and all, all the things are still performing and doing amazingly well, I'm really happy about that because things are working, my debts are are paying off it seems.
And I'm just excited about the fact that from a quality perspective, I feel like the founders that we're finding and meeting are just incredible people who are choosing to start businesses right now. In the midst of all the things that are happening, they're special breed of people. So I feel like we're finding really great opportunities and, and chances to [00:38:00] get on.
With amazing people on their journeys.
Ian Hathaway: So I love how you answered that question. I think most people would get into investment thesis ideas. What I heard you talk about is community. You're building a community around an investment firm. A big part of that is of course, Atlanta investors early on doubted your ability to build it in Atlanta.
They were wrong. Many high profile successes in Atlanta later continues to prove those folks wrong. Atlanta is a very different place now than when you were building. What does Atlanta represent to you for the work you're doing, and just tell us a little bit about where Atlanta is today. Atlanta,
Jewel Burks Solomon: I've been a really big advocate for Atlanta because I think that Atlanta has so many assets.
It's a great city. You can get to anywhere. Atlanta's the busiest airport. You have great universities, you have talent, you [00:39:00] have major corporations, so many Fortune 500 companies here. So from an assets perspective, Atlanta has it all. But I really have taken on Atlanta in terms of building up the ecosystem as a personal mission, and I don't think I'm done yet.
I still think that there's a long ways to go. The mayor of Atlanta, mayor Andre Dickens has put out. Goal of Atlanta becoming a top five tech hub, and I feel personally responsible for making sure that that, that that happens. And I honestly think that there's still a ways to go. One kind of sad fact is of the $125 million that we've raised over the last five years for collab across funds, one and two, maybe 5 million of that has come from Atlanta.
So it's still an effort to get local dollars to move even to someone like me who's spent a long time here doing what I would say is [00:40:00] pretty good work. I'm hoping that when we go out to raise fund three, people will say, okay, there's enough proof points on the board that we should get involved more than we already are.
But I think that there's just so many good things here and when you think about community and who can be impacted. If these things work out, um, that's just a story that I wanna be a part of, so I'll continue to work on it.
Ian Hathaway: Something else that you have been in front of that has impressed me about collab, you've been outspoken on mental health issues, the importance of that.
I know you've made it a part of the offering for founders at collab. You've even put a therapy group on retainer. I am a big believer in therapy, in coaching and founders taking care of their mental health. It's strange to me that investors encourage people to take good care of their physical health, but there's not enough on the mental health.
And yet you're leading on this. Tell me about that decision to make that [00:41:00] offering available. I'm not aware of any other firm that does that.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah. This was actually born out of me putting that mental health offering into our founders fund at Google. Getting feedback from founders that this was by far the most impactful part of the offering.
Maybe in some cases even beyond the dollars. Having access to free therapy and coaching for them was the most impactful thing. So I was like, oh, okay. This already works. It's proven. And candidly, I knew that in my own life, therapy had made such a difference. So I wanted us to take a portion of our management fee and put it towards giving every single founder in the portfolio access to therapy.
And that's something that we've continued into fund two. And again, we, we continue to get this feedback that. It makes such a difference and that the founders would not have done it in some cases. They never had been to therapy and, and they wouldn't have been able to either [00:42:00] afford it or just make the time and space for it had it not been an offering from us.
Ian Hathaway: I love that. Obviously you talked about the motivation for founding collab. It came from your own experience as a founder that was driven in part by experiences you had from identity. It's not lost on me in this environment, DEI initiatives, um, are under attack, not just in governments and corporate boardrooms, but also in courtrooms and litigation.
And yet in my view, the work is as important as ever. Given your experience, how do you contextualize these developments within what your larger mission is? Not just at collab, but you Jewel the individual, the human. And do they at all affect how you're doing things or is it just business as usual?
Jewel Burks Solomon: This is a, a big one.
I look at it in terms of history and [00:43:00] what I recognize is that every period of progress has been faced with backlash throughout history. That has always happened. And so if we think about the last. Let's call it 10 years prior to the past two, we could say that was a period of progress in terms of people receiving more access or more rights.
And historically periods of progress are gonna be met with hostility or backlash. So I think if you consider it from that standpoint, it's not terribly unexpected. And for me, someone who was doing a lot of work in the 20 20 20 21 time period where a lot of initiatives were put out there that were seeped in what could be considered a moment, and I'm [00:44:00] referring to 2020, George Floyd being murdered.
I knew that any initiative that it's rooted in someone's murder cannot be. Longstanding that is fragile ground to to root an initiative in. So with that knowledge, I think it is to be somewhat expected that there would be a shift in perspectives orientation around what does progress look like, who deserves access?
So that's the backdrop. That being said, what has been the next step for me understanding that background. Is, what do I want to continue to do and what is the core of why I get up every day? And the answers to those questions remain the same as they've always been, which is, it's important to me that more people have access to the innovation [00:45:00] economy.
More people have an ability to build wealth in this space, and more people know kind of the road to get there. And so. In my opinion, nothing that's happening in the macro environment. Nothing that's happening politically should shift me from that mission. Now, what I have had to do is adjust how I talk about the work.
That's a reality because I do not want to be at risk. I do not want anyone to sue me. I just wanna be able to do good work. That's, that's really it. And I, and from an investment standpoint, I still believe. That there is alpha in the places where no one else is looking and no one else is investing. So from a competitive standpoint, which I'm a competitor at heart, I want to win.
I believe that every single day we're finding incredible opportunities that most people are either [00:46:00] not looking at, not looking for, or maybe they're seeing and just deciding not to invest, but. For us, we now have proof points to say that looking in places where other folks aren't looking and then building an engagement model and a support model that helps these companies get to the next level.
That is a winning strategy. At the end of the day, we're in business to generate returns, and we believe that our strategy is going to lead to strong returns.
Ian Hathaway: That was very well said. It's what this platform stands for. It's what my mission is in the world as well. We come from different backgrounds. We might be pursuing that differently, but it's the same goal, which is to democratize access to opportunity for systems that are famously closed.
And so I applaud you for that and thank you for the work. Last question, many, many years from now when you're [00:47:00] back on your life and.
What do you hope will be easier for others that was more difficult for you at the time you were building?
Jewel Burks Solomon: What I'm really hoping is that the trust gap closes. People didn't believe me and that interfered with their ability to evaluate my business. I'm hopeful that through my work I will have been able to prove.
That you can trust people in business and give people the benefit of the doubt, of course, do your due diligence, but ultimately invest in people, not just because the pattern matches, but because when you hear them and listen to them and really see them, you get excited about the vision that they want to pursue.
[00:48:00] So I'm hopeful that through my work, through the people that I invest in, through the great things that they do, we're able to get to a point where the trust gap is closed.
Ian Hathaway: Yeah, that's a beautiful note to end on. But here on Outsider Inc. We like to finish with a segment we call Beyond the Bio, where we do some quick hit questions that go beyond your resume and let us get into you.
So what's a quick piece of advice from a mentor that stuck with you throughout your journey?
Jewel Burks Solomon: One piece of advice, and I don't know who that exactly attributed this to, but I, I reflect on it a lot, is to keep the main thing, the main thing.
Ian Hathaway: Hmm. Oh, just a proverb. I love that. Who is an unsung hero in your life and what has been the impact they've had on you?
Jewel Burks Solomon: I talk so much about my grandfathers in interviews that I think. Enough credit isn't given to my grandmothers who equally [00:49:00] have influenced my life in in different ways. I would say I owe a lot of my faith and my devotion to my grandmothers making sure that I was in church at an early age. So those are two beautiful, strong women who I've tried to model what they've taught me as well.
Ian Hathaway: Who's someone in the Atlanta startup community who doesn't get enough credit and deserves a shout out from you?
Jewel Burks Solomon: I'll say, Joey Wilmack is a person who has done consistently great work with a great heart, great integrity for many, many years.
Ian Hathaway: Tell us something most people don't know about you, something outside of work.
It could be a hobby, a favorite travel spot, a guilty pleasure, or maybe even a hidden talent.
Jewel Burks Solomon: I feel like this is my go-to, so a lot of people probably do know this, but I love art. I grew up painting, drawing, [00:50:00] and now I don't get as much time to do that, so I love collecting.
Ian Hathaway: Oh yeah, I'm with you on that.
Love art as well. What are one or two songs you'd like to add to our Spotify founder's Playlist? Something that Fuels your Workday or has inspired you on your journey?
Jewel Burks Solomon: There's a song called Look At God by Corinne Hawthorne that I love, and I think it's a great reminder of blessings, so I'll give that as a good, inspirational song to play.
Ian Hathaway: Okay. Last question. If you could give one piece of advice to someone about to start their first company today, particularly someone who's a bit of an outsider like you, what would it be?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Envision yourself in 10 years and work backwards from there. Think about what ultimately you're working toward and try to put together a plan based on what, what you want that end to look like.
Ian Hathaway: I love that. I'm also reminded of [00:51:00] another quote that I've heard, which is, you are today where you wanted to be 10 years ago.
(both): Hmm.
Ian Hathaway: And so to be grateful for the progress you have made because the goalposts have now shifted. Well, look, jewel, this was an amazing conversation. I'm so glad that you came on. I learned so much about you and had a great time.
I can't wait to share this with our listeners.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you so much. This was awesome.
Ian Hathaway: That's it for this episode of Outsider Inc. A huge thanks to Jewel Burke, Solomon for being with us today. Her journey as a reminder that resilience isn't just about pushing through, it's about staying grounded in what matters most.
Jewel didn't just build an innovative company. She built it with care. She stayed rooted in her values. Stood firm in the face of doubt and kept community at the center the whole way through. What stuck with me most is how she leads with heart, with integrity, and with a vision that's bigger than herself.
She's not just making space for the next generation of founders. She's showing them what it looks like to lead on your own terms. I can't wait [00:52:00] to see where she takes things from here as she's empowering future entrepreneurs in Atlanta. And beyond. If you want more from Outsider, inc, don't forget to subscribe to the platform@outsiderinc.substack.com.
It's packed with highlights from today's episode. And bonus insights you won't wanna miss. You can follow Outsider Inc. On YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn at Outsider, Inc. You can also follow me on X at Ian Hathaway Outsider, Inc. Is produced by Spellbinder Media. We'll be back soon with another fascinating outsider conversation.
Until then, thank you so much for listening and remember, great entrepreneurs can come from anywhere. See you next time.